Daikōtaigōgū no suke taira no tsunemori-ason ke uta’awase 15

Round Three

Left (Win)

たれよりも秋のあはれやまさるらん声にたてては鹿ぞ鳴くなる

tare yori mo
aki no aware ya
masaruran
koe ni tatete wa
shika zo nakunaru
Who might it be that
The sadness of autumn
Strikes more keenly?
Lifting up his voice,
It is the stag crying out!

Lord Yorisuke
29

Right

春夏はなにに心をなぐさめて秋のみ鹿の妻をこふらん

haru natsu wa
nani ni kokoro o
nagusamete
aki nomi shika no
tsuma o kouran
Spring and summer, too,
How do they the heart
Console?
‘Tis in autumn, alone, the stag
Seems to yearn for his mate.

Kenshō
30

The Left charmingly sounds as if the scene it describes is entirely natural. The Right isn’t bad, but, I seem to recall that there was a poem in—I think it was the Poetry Match at Lord Aritsuna’s Residence—that has the phrase ‘In autumn, above all, / The stag seems to yearn for his mate’, so it would have better to refrain from the final two lines. The Left should win.

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